Sliced and shingled food products such as bacon is often placed on a cardboard sheet and inserted into airtight packaging. The cardboard sheet often provides information about the product, such as weight, nutritional information, and grade. In the past, segregated groups of slices were placed on the cardboard sheet manually by attendants located along a packaging and manufacturing line. This is often time consuming and lacking in economic efficiency.
Most bacon lines today are equipped with an automatic cardboard sheet dispenser, such as the dispensing systems disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,328,657 and 4,452,031. Cardboard sheet dispensers are incorporated in bacon or other food product slicing machine lines that are used to group slices in shingled, segregated batches of predetermined weight. The dispensing system dispenses a cardboard sheet onto a conveying surface, such as a conveyor belt, in synchronization with the movement of batches along the conveying surface, so that the movement of the individual batches along the conveyor belt is used to dispose the batches onto the dispensing sheet of cardboard. The batches of sliced product disposed onto a cardboard sheet are transferred further downstream for additional packaging and other processes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,452,031 discloses a card dispenser including a hopper for receiving vertically stacked cardboard sheets and a base having a plurality of strippers to support the stack of sheets while assuring that only one sheet at a time is removed from the hopper. U.S. Pat. No. 4,328,657 discloses a card dispenser including a hopper for receiving vertically stacked cardboard sheets with a plurality of restrainers in supporting the stack of sheets and to fan the sheets to minimize sticking of the sheets to one another. A pick off assembly that removes the lower most sheet from the hopper and transfers it to the nip of a roller assembly is disclosed in both patents. The pick off assembly includes two piston cylinder arrangements which allows the first piston cylinder assembly to actuate between a vertical upright position and an inclined position where the sheet is picked up by a roller assembly. The roller assembly directs the cardboard sheet so it is moved by a pusher assembly to a location where the cardboard receives a batch of slices.
The present inventors have recognized that the known prior art card dispensing devices described, and others, have been disadvantageous for various reasons. Prior art dispensing systems lack the capacity to dispense and package sliced products at higher volumes. Prior art dispensing systems also lack the ability to adapt packaging process to accommodate different cards for various grades of meat product being packaged along the same processing line.